*poke* “Is it dead?” –Tiller

“Dammit Jim! I’m a pilot, not a physician!”

And, with that small ode to Dr. Leonard McCoy, I’ll proceed to answer Tiller’s question. In case you haven’t figured out by the few posts I have made this fall, this semester is by far the busiest I’ve had yet in my college career. Because of that, blogging has been one of those things that hasn’t been getting done because it’s not high enough on the priority list (I figure my state of being perpetually behind in my classes should take at least some precedence). Also, I have traditionally done most of my blogging while at work at the AvTech library, but my schedule this semester has been less conducive to writing while I’m at work (more homework to do at work, less long shifts that present more free time to write, not working closings when the library is dead quiet, etc). Naturally, some of you have noticed I haven’t been writing much and have taken guesses as to why, so perhaps now that you know the truth of the matter it would be entertaining to look at my Top 5 favorite incorrect guesses “why Shawn hasn’t been blogging:”

5. He started playing Counter Strike: Source (a first-person shooter computer game) on Eddie’s computer and quickly discovered that he’s so good that he decided to tour the country and make a living off his winnings from CS:S tournaments

4. He’s spent the last month moonlighting as a superhero. (Let me tell you, saving the world every night really saps the creative juices!)

3. He hasn’t stopped blogging. In fact, he’s continued to write at the usual average of 2 posts per week, but he’s been asked by his publisher to refrain from posting them so as not to infringe on the sales of his upcoming autobiography: “Stick, Rudder, and Keyboard: A Pilot’s College Life Through the Eyes of Blogger.com,” a compilation of the 2.5 years of posts from the spring of sophomore year through graduation this May. Coming summer ’07, preorder your copy now (only $29.95)!

2. He is deceased, having been murdered by Purdue’s infamous “killer squirrels” after they learned of his brilliant plot to capture them, put them all in hamster wheels, and use the ensuing energy to take over the world.

1. He has a girlfriend. (Sorry, but while the rumor they all want me is most definitely true; I do not have a girlfriend at the time of this writing. NOTE: I reserve the right to change this fact at any time without prior warning, public debate, or right of appeal by outside parties. )

Ok, so I might have made a couple of those up…

Fine…if you want to be technical about it…I made all of them up (except for #1, that one is actually a bit of wishful thinking on part of my grandparents that they mentioned to my mom recently), but let’s not bother ourselves with such minutia.

The truth of the matter is that I’ve just been insanely busy the last few weeks. Last week (the 2^nd-6^th) makes a perfect example:

-Thursday evening I flew as co-pilot on a King Air trip to Lansing, Michigan and came back three hours later.

-Friday afternoon I had an exam in my Accounting class (didn’t go well).

-Friday evening – Sunday afternoon I went to the Campus Crusade Fall Retreat (really sweet, but I only got 5 hours of sleep Friday night because I was up late talking with some guys and 2.5 hours of sleep Saturday night because I was working on Encouragement Boards until 5:30am (if you don’t know what E-Boards are, feel free to ask sometime)).

-Sunday evening I went to Indianapolis to see Audio Adrenaline on their last tour (really sad because they were on their last tour and they were opening for another band, MercyMe; they only got to play 8 songs and weren’t even able to play some of their harder stuff like Mighty Good Leader, Chevette, We’re A Band, etc because of the MercyMe audience).

-Sunday night I got 3.5 hours of sleep because I had to finish a bunch of homework and get up for the 727 Sim on Monday morning.

-Monday I had a cross-country in the 727 Sim, an interview in my Interviewing class, and two quizzes in my 727 Ground class

Yeah, pretty crazy. The good news is that the last couple of days have been relatively quiet, so I’ve been able to catch up on some sleep (10.5 hours Friday night!) and try to relax a little. Probably the single biggest (and best) news from this week is that Shane has returned from his month of job training down in Atlanta! I got a call from him on Wednesday announcing that he would get back Thursday (he wasn’t supposed to get back until this weekend) and that I was sworn to secrecy as the only person who knew about his early return (he even kept it from his roommates). We decided to surprise everyone by arranging for everybody to meet for dinner Thursday night with the promise of me announcing some good news that I’d just gotten (Shane’s back!) to them all at once. Chip was not terribly happy that I was keeping my good news from him and did a lot of guessing about a number of topics (as did Amy Chen), but I was able to neither confirm nor deny anything (I think Shane returning was one of his top guesses by the end). A couple hours before we were to all meet Chip teamed up with the ARK girls to try to make a joke out of their guessing by each of them sending me a Hallmark E-Card with congratulations of one sort or another (apparently Thursday was a big day for me, not only did Shane come back, but I’m also told I had an anniversary (oops, I forgot!), bought a new house, celebrated my bar mitzvah, and had a kid!). Needless to say, we are all very happy to have Shane back because we missed him a lot.

Ok, I think that’s it for now. I don’t know when I’ll get to posting next (might even be later this week, predictions are for it to be relatively quiet), but I’m thinking I might devote an entire post to pictures from various things thus far this semester (Turkey Run, Fall Retreat, random craziness, etc). I’d do it now, but I’d rather get this posted and spend the time uploading pictures later.